Running head: PERSONALITY AND CREATIVITY ON STM

Personality and Creativity on Short-Term Memory

Anderson Bass, Andrew Grigone, & Kaitlyn Sampson

Westminster College, MO
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Abstract

In this paper we report on the results of personality and creativity on short

term memory of undergraduate students at Westminster College, MO. In this study,

participants were randomly assigned to a group and were given a set amount of time

to memorize a list of words. Unrelated pictures were next to the words and the

participants in group one were told to use the unrelated pictures to help memorize the

words, but group two were not told to use the unrelated pictures to help memorize the

words. After the set amount of time was up, sheets of paper were passed out and the

participants wrote down all the words they could remember. The participants were

given a set time to recall the words, and after the time was up the sheets were

collected and a creativity and confidence questionnaire was passed out to each

participant. We found that personality and creativity did not have an effect on

memory recall in the way we hypothesized.

Keywords: Unrelated Cues, Creativity, Memory Recollection

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Personality and Creativity on Short-Term Memory

Memory is a very conceptual topic that is widely studied in the field of psychology.

Memory is the process of encoding, storing, and recalling information. The topic at hand is

memory recollection. When given a list of words, a story, pictures, etc., to memorize and recall at

a later time, there are many strategies that have been found to be successful for recalling the

specific information. The effect of context at retrieval is driven from the contextual similarity

between the target information and the test. When both are presented in the same context the

probability of remembering the target information is higher (Levy-Gigi & Vakil, 2012). Where

our study differs is the fact that the pictures are not related to the words. However, we are

expecting the probability of remembering the target information to be high as well.

Our study, however, has a tie to visual short-term memory. Visual short-term memory

(VSTM) allows us to act on information that is no longer in a view and is essential for flexible

and efficient human behavior in an ever-changing visual environment (Van Moorselaar, D.,

Olivers, C. L., Theeuwes, J., Lamme, V. F., & Sligte, I. G., 2015). However, almost all of the

studies measured only accuracy, not response times (RTs), even though older adults are typically

slower than young adults (Ratcliff, R., & McKoon, G., 2015). Like these studies, we are looking

at accuracy and how human behavior changes, or does not change, in a manipulated setting in

college aged adults, approximately 17-25.

This study can also be related to that of Guez and Lev (2016) who looked at age related memory

processing. In their study, each participant, in both age groups, studied lists of word pairs and

picture pairs and was tested for item and associative recognition using both verbal and pictorial

stimuli (Guez & Lev, 2016). This study is similar to ours in the fact that we are having the

participants using words as well as pictures for recall, but Guez and Lev (2016) used different
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age groups for their groups. Future research can be done with our experiment using different age

groups.

The current experiment was designed to see if personality and creativity had an effect on

memory recall. All participants, in both groups, studied a list of words. One group is told to use

the nonrelated pictures as cues to remember the list of words and the other group is not instructed

to do anything with the nonrelated pictures. After recalling all the words the participants can,

they are given a creativity questionnaire followed by a confidence questionnaire. We

hypothesized that students who used the non-related pictures to help them memorize the words

will score higher than students who do not use the pictures. We also hypothesized that students

who scored higher in creativity will have a higher recall score using the pictures.

Method

Participants and Design. Fifty-two participants were included in this study. There were 17

males and 35 females that were taken from, mostly, intro level psychology classes at Westminster

College, MO. There was a session every 30 minutes, and every session switched off between

group 1 and group 2. Group 1 was told to use the non-related pictures to help memorize the

words, and group 2 was told to ignore the pictures and just focus on memorizing the words.

Materials and Procedure. This experiment involved a medium amount of materials. The key

materials to help proctor this experiment were a classroom with tables and a projector screen. We

also needed an informed consent sheet to carry out this experiment and we included a

demographic sheet as well. During the experiment we gave the participants a blank sheet of

paper to write down the memorized words and we provided writing utensils if the participants

didnt already have their own. We used a timer on a cell phone to keep track of time and at the
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end of the experiment we had the participants fill out a confidence survey followed by a

creativity survey.

Using all the above materials, we had a strict procedure. The participants came to the

assigned classroom at their designated times. When all the participants were in the room we

passed out and explained the inform consent sheet. For all the participants who chose to forgo the

study, we had them complete a demographic sheet then wait for instructions. Depending on

which session they were in, the participants received instructions from an experimenter,

depending on if they were in group 1 or group 2. As it has previously been explained, group 1

and group 2. Group 1 was told to use the non-related pictures to help memorize the words, and

group 2 was told to ignore the pictures and just focus on memorizing the words. After assuring

that the participants didnt have any further questions, they were given 1 minute to memorize all

the words, there were 15 words. After a minute was up, the screen was turned off and the

participants waited 30 seconds. During that 30 seconds we passed out the blank pieces of paper,

and when the timer went off the participants had 1 minute to recall/ write down all the words that

they could remember. After 1 minute, we instructed all the participants to put their writing

utensils down and we collected their sheets. After collecting the sheets we passed the confidence

survey out which had the creativity survey on the other side. After participants completed both

surveys, they were debriefed, thanked, and could leave when they were finished.

Results

A univariate two-way between subjects Factorial ANOVA was done to see if there was a

main effect of creativity and group on number of words memorized. A two-way between

subjects ANOVA showed that there was no main effect of creativity on number of words

memorized, F (1, 48) = 2.284, p= .137, eta-squared= .045. Participants in the creative split who
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showed high creativity (M= 8.00, SE= .433) showed no significant difference than participants in

the creative split who showed low creativity (M= 8.938, SE= .444). However, there was a main

effect of group on number of correctly memorized words, F (1, 48) = 4.198, p= .046, eta-

squared- .080. Participants who were not told to use the pictures performed better (M= 9.104,

SE= .484) than those who were told to use the pictures (M= 7.833, SE= .387). There was not a

significant interaction between creativity and group on number of words memorized, F (1, 48) =

1.834, p= .526, eta-squared= .008. (See Figure. 1). The second hypothesis that we wanted to

look at was how the creative split and group could be influenced by confidence survey question

four. A univariate two-way between subjects Factorial ANOVA was run to see if there was a

main effect of creativity and group on confidence question four. A two-way between subjects

ANOVA showed that there was no main effect of creativity on confidence question four, F(1,

48)= 1.092, p= .301, eta-squared= .022. Participants who were lower in creativity score higher

on question four (M= 3.138, SE= .208) than those who were higher in creativity (M= 2.833,

SE= .203). Unfortunately, there was almost a significance of group on confidence question 4, F

(1, 48) = 3.815, p= .056, eta-squared= .074. There was not a huge significant difference between

participants who were not informed to use the pictures (M= 3.271, SE= .227) and those who were

told to use the pictures (M= 2.700, SE= .182). There was also no significant interaction between

creativity and group on confidence question four, F (1, 48) = 1.929, p= .171, eta-squared= .039.

(See Figure. 2)

Discussion

After running our data, we were very surprised by the results. Both hypothesis were

rejected, however we found the results that we got interesting. In the first ANOVA we ran we say

that creativity had no effect on number of words memorized. This was interesting because we
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thought that people who had higher creativity scores would have gotten more words memorized.

However, there was a main effect of group on the number of correct words memorized which

means we successfully manipulated the experiment. Seeing that creativity had no effect on

number of correct words memorized it made sense that our hypothesis, students who scored

higher in creativity will have a higher recall score using the pictures, would be rejected because

we found that participants who were not told to use the pictures performed better than those who

were told to use the pictures.

In our confidence questionnaire we focused on one of the questions (C4). C4 asked, I

considered the words easy to remember. We found that there was no main effect of creativity on

confidence question four. When looking at creativity on C4 we found that participants who were

lower in creativity scored higher on C4 than those who were higher in creativity. We also found

that there was almost a significance of group on C4. There was not a huge significant difference

between group 1 and group 2 on C4. And there was also no significant interaction between

creativity and group on confidence question four.

In our study our group was our independent variable, group 1 and group 2. Group 1 was

told to use the non-related pictures to help memorize the words, and group 2 was told to ignore

the pictures and just focus on memorizing the words. Our dependent variable were the creativity

score, the confidence score, and the number of correct words recalled. In our study there could

be multiple limitations. One could be that we didnt give the participants enough time to study

and memorize the words. Another aspect of time could be the amount of time that was alluded

between memorizing the words and when the participants could write down the words. Also the

amount of time participants were given to write down/ recall the words could be a limitation.

Another limitation, not relating to time, could be that the directions given by one of the
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experimenters. There were a lot of directions and they could have been clearer. Of course the

sample size could have been bigger, but one more possible limitation could have been that the

non- related pictures distracted the participants, no matter which group they were in.

This study could be heavily used in the classroom. Teachers could see our results and conclude

that if they use pictures or examples on their PowerPoints or any other form of lecture, that there

needs to be pictures that are related, or back to our limitations, more time to study the slides.

Various aspects for future research can be found from this study. In research by Vanessa Loaiza,

David McCabe, Jessie Youngblood, Nathan Rose, & Joel Myerson, (2011) they found that the

data we report have important implications regarding whether distinct principles govern retrieval

from WM and episodic memory (Loaiza, V. M., McCabe, D. P., Youngblood, J. L., Rose, N. S.,

& Myerson, J. 2011). That being said, future research could be explored to see how this

experiment not only looks at short- term memory, but also working memory and episodic

memory. This study was focused on college aged people, around 17-24. For future research it

would be interesting to compare scores of correct words memorized between college aged

students and older adults in their 40s or 50s. Future research that incorporates creativity could be

explored as well. Instead of the experimenter providing the nonrelated pictures, the participants

could drawl their own pictures of the words and explain how those pictures helped them

memorize the words.

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References

Levy-Gigi, E., & Vakil, E. (2012). The dual effect of context on memory of related and unrelated

themes: Discrimination at encoding and cue at retrieval. Memory, 20(6), 728-741.

doi:10.1080/09658211.2012.701632

Loaiza, V. M., McCabe, D. P., Youngblood, J. L., Rose, N. S., & Myerson, J. (2011). The

influence of levels of processing on recall from working memory and delayed recall

tasks. Journal Of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, And Cognition, 37(5),

1258-1263. doi:10.1037/a0023923

Guez, J., & Lev, D. (2016). A picture is worth a thousand words? Not when it comes to

associative memory of older adults. Psychology And Aging, 31(1), 37-41.

doi:10.1037/pag0000069

Ratcliff, R., & McKoon, G. (2015). Aging effects in item and associative recognition memory for

pictures and words. Psychology And Aging, 30(3), 669-674. doi:10.1037/pag0000030

Van Moorselaar, D., Olivers, C. L., Theeuwes, J., Lamme, V. F., & Sligte, I. G. (2015). Forgotten

but not gone: Retro-cue costs and benefits in a double-cueing paradigm suggest multiple

states in visual short-term memory. Journal Of Experimental Psychology: Learning,

Memory, And Cognition, 41(6), 1755-1763. doi:10.1037/xlm0000124

PERSONALITY AND CREATIVITY ON STM 10

Figures

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Figure 2